


time is an illusion (that helps things make sense)

by grizzlysnare



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire, Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Heavy Angst, Non-Binary Elphaba, Other, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grizzlysnare/pseuds/grizzlysnare
Summary: a cat on a doorstep, two hands meeting, hopeless romance and everything else that comes along with it.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Fiyero Tigelaar, Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi hello, it has been a hot minute since i've posted, mental health has been a bitch, but i'm back! i'm trying to develop my style a little, and i've had this fic in mind for a while, and i think i'm sorted enough to actually start posting and writing it! 
> 
> go ahead and follow my tumblr if you want @grizzlybearsnare

**Twelve years earlier**

Melena watched on as her eldest daughter sat in the autumn leaves, crunching the lifeless plant remnants in one hand, biting the other. She wasn’t difficult to please, as far as children went. As green and freakish as she was, Melena thought, at least she didn’t whine and scream as much as her sister. 

_Not as much as a normal child_.

When Nessarose was out with Frex, silence often fell in the household, and all around it. They were very secluded as far as families went. 

“Mama, look,” 

Elphaba held up her unbitten hand, a huge spider crawling around her palm. Melena shuddered, grimacing.

“Put it down, bugs don’t want to be disturbed,”

Melena hated spiders.

“You’re not looking! Mama, if you look, I’ll put it down!”

Elphaba started to get up, cupping the spider with both hands. The six legged thing crawled up and down her arms, feeling its way along.

“So help me if you come near me with that thing, Elphaba. Put it _down,_ ”

“It isn’t a _thing_ , mama.”

Even so, Elphaba sat down again, letting the spider go on its blissfully ignorant way again. 

“And stop biting yourself, you’ll get an infection,”

“ ‘Kay.”

Melena sat back, shutting her eyes and sighing. She couldn’t find the motherly instinct to coddle Elphaba, but she didn’t think Elphaba minded. Little frog. Elphie. Fae.

What a weird little thing she was, and how proud of it she seemed.

-

**12:00AM**

Elphaba sat in their bedroom – they could hear Fiyero yelling at a video game in the living room of the flat they shared. There was a spider on their wall. A house spider, big and brown and unaware of anything except the smaller spider near it. 

_Dinner._

Elphaba was hungry, but couldn’t find it in themselves to get out of bed and get something to eat. 

“You fucking cheating... fuck! Fuck this, I quit! No, fuck off, I’m not playing this shit game anymore!”

They smirked at the sound of Fiyero getting increasingly angry – at least he took himself away from that stupid game. Hearing angry footsteps coming to his room, they spoke into the darkness.

“Night, Fiyero.”

Elphaba only got a grunt in response, but at least they were acknowledged. It felt good to be acknowledged.

They settled down to sleep again soon after, slipping into dreamless unconsciousness.

In the corner of the room, a spider began its first meal in a long time.

-

Galinda Arduenna had woken with a start, but she had no idea what woke her. Possibly a night terror, based on how much she was sweating. Gross.

She’d have to change the sheets in the morning.

Clicking her fingers, she summoned a small ball of light – she could have just turned on her bedside lamp, but magic was cooler. It was like her own personal lightshow.

Her alarm clock read 00:00. Not too late by a lot of people’s standards, but Galinda (much as a socialite she was) had never been a night owl. _Or was it a night Owl?_ She was too tired to think about the proper phrasing for it.

 _Click_.

The orb of light fizzled and died, and she pulled the covers over herself again – determined to get back to sleep. In the flat above her, she heard shouting. It happened every night, almost without fail.

Almost comforting.

She shut her eyes, tiredness overcoming her once again. A dog barked outside, an argument started somewhere on the streets too. The sounds of Gillikin at night were interesting.

When sleep came once again, she dreamt of dogs and street drinkers dancing around bonfires. Galinda’s dreams rarely made sense, and she liked it that way.

-

Outside the block of flats, a snow-white cat slept by the door – somehow it had managed to get outside again, and so it had to sleep in the cold until someone came to let it back in. 

Its legs twitched, caught up in dreams of catching mice. Dreaming of the hunt. And of the warmth of the indoors.


	2. Chapter 2

** 1:30PM **

“Oh Oz-! I’m sorry!” 

Galinda stumbled backwards, her right leg up in the air. She slowly put her foot down on the concrete, an angry cat a few inches away from her foot. 

It hissed at her, understandably. She was pretty sure she’d stepped on its tail. To be fair, she had been scrolling through social media on her way out, so she didn’t go out of her way to step on it.

The cat probably didn’t take that into account though.

“Why were you even outside? Are you lost?” Galinda crouched down, and the cat reluctantly came back up to her – at least it wasn’t feral, and it had a collar. 

She reached for it carefully, reading over the text.

' _My name is Malky, I'm a bit of an asshole in the mornings. I sleep outside sometimes. If you find me, take me to flat 3A. My slave's phone number and full address is on the back.'_

So the owner had a sense of humour. That was good. 

“I don’t think you’re an asshole. I’m sorry for stepping on you,” The girl took a short breath, raising her eyebrows, “I’m going to take you back to your flat now.” 

Quickly getting over the injustice, Malky allowed him or herself to be picked up quite easily. Galinda unlocked the building’s door again with one hand, and went up to the flat, ringing the doorbell. 

Malky meowed.

Someone inside the flat cursed, then came to the door, and Galinda went to talk when it opened, but the words died in her throat. 

The someone was _green_. 

“Oh, Malky! And also the kind stranger that brought you back to me. I swear I treat him perfectly fine, he’s just a right little escape artist,”

“I... it was no problem, really.”

 _The someone was green_. 

The someone also looked as though they noticed Galinda staring, and she immediately felt mortified at her own... shock? Intolerance? The person couldn’t seriously be green. It had to be some elaborate prank.

She offered Malky to the person at the door, and they took him gently, cradling and kissing him for a second.

“If you see the bastard outside again, you know where to find me.”

Galinda just nodded. There was an awkward silence between the two for a few agonising seconds, before they both said their pleasantries, and the door was shut.

Making her way back down the stairs and out of the flat building, she pulled out her phone again when she was absolutely sure there were no more cats asleep in her vicinity. 

She went onto her groupchat with the rest of her close friends, and immediately told them about what had just happened.

 _Green_.

-

“Go on, be free, you stupid little thing.” 

Elphaba let Malky go once they were completely sure the door was shut. They weren’t stupid, they saw the way that girl had stared. Nothing new, but it still stung.

“Malky?”

Malky turned around at the sound of his name, meowing quietly.

 _Were they really about to ask their cat if he cared about their skin tone_?

“You’re a bastard. Also go eat your kibble.”

Happily obliging, Malky made his way into this kitchen.

Elphaba sat down on the couch, glaring out of the window. The girl was cute, but Elphaba wasn’t. And Elphaba was probably entirely the wrong gender for that girl, and entirely the wrong skin colour.

That, and they’d just met. It was barely a meeting, really. More like a fucking mini freak show plus a runaway cat. Elphaba had talked too much and made it weird. They should have just taken Malky and shut the door. 

They chewed on the sleeve of their shirt, shutting their eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“ ’Yero, you awake yet?”

“Fuck off, my business hours don’t start til’ half two at the very least.”

That was the response they wanted. Normalcy. They just had to put that stupid incident aside. Much worse had happened to them before, but for some reason they were hyperfixating on a person they would probably never interact with again in their life. 

They needed a drink. 

_Several_.

Malky came out of the kitchen, licking his mouth clean, and jumping up onto the windowsill, observing the world.

At least he didn’t care. 

“Hey, Malky?”

“Meow?”

“You’re not really a bastard, I love you.”


End file.
